A bin of CDs.

LET's touch briefly on some recent recordings, taking in composers--contemporary composers--violinists, pianists, and singers. We'll conclude with an oddball CD (not that there won't be some oddness in the meantime).

First come the composers, the most important musicians of all. Augusta Read Thomas is busy and honored. Forty years old, this American is composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, meaning that she has written several pieces for them. Early this season, however, the New York Philharmonic premiered a Thomas work, Gathering Paradise for soprano and orchestra, on texts of Emily Dickinson. (Virtually every American composer sets Dickinson, much as English composers have always set Shakespeare.)

Thomas likes playing with texts, and she plays with a slew of them on a new CD that includes In My Sky at Twilight. Also on this disc (from ARTCD) is ... Words of the Sea ..., a purely orchestral work, but inspired by a Wallace Stevens poem, "The Idea of Order at Key West." Thomas is a skilled craftsman, no matter what you think of what she produces. Her intelligence and ability are not in doubt; we can disagree on her level of musical inspiration.

Like much of her music, ... Words of the Sea ... seems to be telling you something, insistently. It is demanding that you both listen and think. Its final movement is dubbed "Homage to Debussy," referring to the composer who wrote one of the greatest sea pieces of all, La Mer.

In My Sky at Twilight--for soprano and chamber orchestra--includes no fewer than 16 texts, one after the other. Thomas takes snippets from all sorts of writers, so that a 9th-century Japanese scribe (Ono no Komachi) is followed by Robert Browning, and Sappho precedes e. e. cummings, and so on. Thomas also has the wit to include one of the most striking and settable lines in all of poetry, from Christina Rossetti: "Pulse for pulse, breath for breath."

She writes in a familiar language of today, Thomas does, full of anxiety, jumpiness, and irresolution. Agreat deal of contemporary music seems a sci-fi or horror soundtrack. But Thomas has something to say, and should not be ignored.

Arvo Part, the Estonian master, has not been ignored for decades, enjoying a place as one of the "holy minimalists" (composers of a spiritual bent who write in the style of minimalism). A new CD from Virgin Classics, however, catches him before minimalism, before, if you will, he became Arvo Part. This CD includes Pro et contra, a cello concerto from 1966, played by Truls Mork, the superb Norwegian. And what is this concerto "For and against"? Tonality, seems to be the question. Or, more broadly, the old way (or older ways).

In this piece, as in others on this disc, the composer searches, explores, figuring out what he is supposed to be (and, not insignificantly, what the Soviet authorities permit him to be). In this bracing CD, an excellent mind is reaching toward maturity.

The mature Tan Dun fuses the Chinese with the Western--and from him we have a movie score, that to Hero (Sony Classical). By the look of the accompanying photos, this is one of those flyingthroughthe-air flicks. The music is tailor-made for it, of course, but we also hear characteristic Tan Dun. Some parts are exceedingly Romantic, and also a little sentimental. This score is cheesy as well as Chinesey. Itzhak Perlman takes part in this disc, continuing his longtime association with the movies. He plays beautifully and tastefully, never giving the impression that he's slumming.

And now, some violinists (other than Perlman). Christian Tetzlaff is a young German, garnering raves all over the world, although I have been slower than others to enthuse. Two of his latest CDs are the complete Bartok sonatas, performed with the (young) Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes (Virgin), and the complete Brahms sonatas, performed with the (young) German pianist Lars Vogt (EMI Classics). In the Bartok, Tetzlaff is no doubt competent, if not a threat to, say, Josef Szigeti's reputation. It is in the unaccompanied sonata--written for Yehudi Menuhin--that Tetzlaff most shines, contributing the thorniness, virtuosity, and passion that Bartok desires. (Passion in Bartok? You betcha.)

Lars Vogt has a big career, for reasons that elude some of us. The Brahms sonatas with Tetzlaff are--to repeat a word--competent, if not distinguished. Vogt has a strange sense of line, distorting passages with ungainly accents. In repertory so common as the Brahms sonatas, this CD is dispensable (while not unworthy).

Vogt is also heard with the (young) American violinist Sarah Chang, in a French vein: the Franck sonata, Saint-Saens's Sonata No. 1, and the Ravel sonata. (Please, no complaining that Franck was actually Belgian.) This duo is sometimes short on Gallic refinement, and Gallic piquancy, but Chang in particular does some impressive things, for example in the Ravel, infectious and jazzy.

Of the many young violinists today, Hilary Hahn--another American--is perhaps king, or queen. Just why is apparent in her new CD with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon). The program consists of the Elgar concerto and Vaughan Williams's Lark Ascending. That Sir Colin--probably the greatest Elgar interpreter in the world, along with Andre Previn--should have wanted to record the concerto with Hahn says something. Hahn is lucky to work with the old conductor; then too, he is lucky to work with her.

The aforementioned Leif Ove Andsnes is a solid, intelligent pianist--if occasionally severe--and he can be heard in two Mozart concertos, No. 9 in E flat and No. 18 in B flat, on EMI. (He leads the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra as well.) These performances are typical of him: tidy, sensible--an example to the children (and others).

Another pianist, the Hungarian Andras Schiff, has been on a Janacek jag lately, presiding over a series of concerts featuring that composer's music at Carnegie Hall. Janacek was born in 1854, meaning that this is his 150th birthday--and the music world is besotted with anniversaries. On ECM (not to be confused with EMI), Schiff plays the composer's major piano works, with understanding and commitment. Janacek's piano music may never be as honored as his operas, but it is hardly negligible.

Also in Carnegie Hall, Daniel Barenboim played Book I of Bach's WellTempered Clavier, and it was--in the opinion of this critic--a disaster, as the pianist pounded and pedaled and blundered away. Not that there wasn't some relief in this mess. In any event, the CD-buying public can hear what Barenboim did with Book I in the studio, on Warner Classics. The studio can cover a multitude of sins, but not all of them.

Ian Bostridge, the British tenor, is another musician who has been in Carnegie Hall lately, singing Schubert's Winterreise (with Andsnes, as it happens). It's unusual to hear this great, bleak song-cycle from a light lyric tenor, but plenty of people like it from Bostridge, even if I find it a little too polished and pretty. Listeners may judge for themselves on the Bostridge/Andsnes recording, from EMI. This same label gives us Bostridge in French songs, by Debussy, Faure, and Poulenc. I may object that the singing is a bit mannered and self-conscious, but it is certainly legitimate and considered--and Bostridge fans, who are legion, will go wild for it.

The bountiful American mezzo Stephanie Blythe is heard in important literature: the Brahms Alto Rhapsody, Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, and Mahler's "Abschied," from Das Lied von der Erde (Virgin). She is a very fine singer, and she does nothing strictly wrong, but I might ask for more transport in this music--all of it.

Truly delicious, however, is the disc from Natalie Dessay, the French soprano, all Strauss--excerpts from Ariadne auf Naxos, Arabella, and Der Rosenkavalier, plus the Brentano Lieder (also on Virgin). Few can touch her in this corner of the Strauss rep: that reserved for high, light, coloratura sopranos such as Dessay.

Ready for the oddball? ACD from RCA Red Seal called Ravel's Greatest Hit. It features ten different versions of Bolero. We hear two "straight" renditions--from conductors Charles Munch and Eduardo Mata--plus Isao Tomita on his synthesizer, Benny Goodman with his orchestra, Morton Gould, in a piano arrangement. More than a party album--hang on, does anyone attend such parties anymore? Let's start again: More than a novelty album, this CD is a tribute to an ingenious and enduring work. Ravel--an often grave man--would have smiled.